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Credit: George Pak from Pexels
A new study led by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital finds that military women and their families are at significantly higher risk for chronic pain.
A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Massachusetts General Brigham Health System, finds that active-duty military women who served during periods of intense combat deployment (2006-2013) are at significantly increased risk for chronic pain compared to those who served at other times.
The study also found that female dependents of military personnel who served between 2006 and 2013 were more likely to experience chronic pain, and those with lower socioeconomic status and mental illnesses faced an even higher risk. JAMA Network Open.
“Our goal was to explore the effects of frequent exposure to intense combat deployments on military women and their civilian spouses,” said Andrew Schoenfeld, MD, MSc, an orthopedic surgeon in BWH’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Center for Surgery and Public Health and lead author of the paper.
“As a former military veteran, I am familiar with the stress that repeated deployments can cause to service members and their families. However, I was surprised by the magnitude of the impacts observed here, especially on female civilian spouses. This highlights an often overlooked aspect of the deployment schedule that the military health care system must be aware of.”
Chronic pain is a distressing condition that can last for months or years and significantly reduce quality of life. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of 2021, 20.9% of U.S. adults experience chronic pain. The condition is also costly for both individuals and healthcare systems due to the ongoing need for treatment and enormous lost productivity.
The researchers conducted a cohort study using data from the Military Health System Data Repository, focusing on active-duty female service members and female dependents of active-duty service members from all branches of the Department of Defense (Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps). The study included health records of 3,473,401 individuals aged 18 to 64 from 2006 to 2020.
Of these records, 324,499 (9.3%) had a diagnosis of chronic pain. The study divided the cohort into two groups: one from 2006 to 2013, characterized by more intense combat experience, and one from 2014 to 2020, characterized by significantly less combat experience. Individuals who had a chronic pain diagnosis before military service were excluded.
Comparing these cohorts, it was found that those who served from 2006 to 2013 (14.8% active duty military; 11.3% dependents) had significantly higher rates of chronic pain compared to those who served from 2014 to 2020 (7.1% active duty military; 3.7% dependents).
Specifically, female military service members from 2006 to 2013 were 53% more likely to suffer from chronic pain than female military service members from 2014 to 2020.
The study also found associations between chronic pain and factors such as mental health and socioeconomic status among those serving in the Army and Marine Corps.
“People from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and those with pre-existing mental illnesses often encounter more barriers to accessing medical and behavioral health services, which can exacerbate and prolong their suffering,” Schonfeld noted.
One limitation of these findings is that because they are based on claims data, investigators were not able to interview patients directly to fully understand the circumstances and symptoms that led to a chronic pain diagnosis.
In the future, Shoenfeld and her colleagues aim to evaluate how persistent prescription opioid use differs between active-duty military women and their civilian dependents with chronic pain, and they hope to conduct a prospective observational study to better understand the long-term health effects of military deployment.
For more information:
Incidence of chronic pain disorders among women in the military health care system; JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.20393
Courtesy of Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Quote: Military Service’s Hidden Health Toll: Study Finds Female Military Service Members and Their Families Endure Increased Chronic Pain (July 5, 2024) Retrieved July 5, 2024 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-military-hidden-health-toll-servicewomen.html
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